Leaders of the pack

InTech, Aug 2003 by Strothman, Jim

Richard Morley Many consider Morley to be the father of the programmable controller; his credits include designing the original ladder-logic programmable logic controller (PLC). First demonstrated at GM in 1969 as Bedford Associates Modicon 084 solid-state sequential logic solver, Morley designed it for factory automation and continuous processing applications. The quintessential engineer and inventor holds more than 20 U.S. and foreign patents and continues to work on novel computer designs, artificial intelligence, chaos and complexity, and the factory of the future.

Odo Struger Often called the father of Allen-Bradley's PLC and credited with creating that acronym, Dr. Struger also developed PLC application software during his nearly forty-year career at Allen-Bradley/Rockwell and played a leadership role in developing National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 1131-3 PLC programming language standards. After moving from Austria to the U.S. in the 1950s, he became an engineer at Allen-Bradley in 1958, retiring in 1997 as Rockwell Automation's vice president of technology.

Hans Baumann One of the world's eminent experts on flow control technologies and control valve designs, including noise prediction methods in control valves, Baumann founded the H.D. Baumann Co. in Portsmouth, N.H. (now an Emerson/Fisher subsidiary). A director of the ISA standards and practices department, he continues to serve as the U.S. technical expert on the IEC standard committee SC65B/WG9 for control valves. He is a leader in revisions to the sizing standards for very low Cv valves. His efforts and technical expertise were instrumental in getting the IEC community to accept the technically based ISA noise prediction approach, a standard that continues to gain worldwide acceptance for predicting noise associated with valves.

Edgar H. Bristol Named for his grandfather-the founder of Foxboro Company-Edgar was the originator of relative gain analysis and of the EXACT self-tuning controller. He and Pete Hansen, a noted Foxboro electrical and mechanical engineer, broke ground in their work in multivariable and adaptive control, software, and self-tuning controllers.

Lotfi A. Zadeh Considered the father of fuzzy logic control, Dr. Zadeh, head of the electrical engineering department at the University of California at Berkeley, first used the term "fuzzy" in the engineering journal Proceedings of the IRE in 1962. Fuzzy logic shortens the time for engineering development and is used in system control and analysis design.

Walter Bajek During a fifty-year career at United Oil Products (UOP), Bajek distinguished himself in the design and application of process control instrumentation. He participated in the design of more than 230 process units and worked at 50 field assignments, holds 44 patents, and has authored numerous technical articles. An ISA fellow, he became an honorary member in 1993. He received ISA's highest award, the Albert Sperry Gold Medal, in 1981.